


there's a dance in the old dame yet

by prosopopeya



Category: Glee, bare: A Pop Opera - Hartmere/Intrabartolo
Genre: Adolescent Sexuality, Alternate Universe - Fusion, Coming Out, Crossover, F/F, Genderswap, References to Suicide, Suicide, Teen Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-03
Updated: 2012-06-03
Packaged: 2017-11-06 18:48:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/421993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prosopopeya/pseuds/prosopopeya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Quinn's life is a carefully written play, a musical, and through everything -- through Tina and the pregnancy and the way everything falls to pieces and everyone forgets their lines -- she sings her song up until the very end.</p>
            </blockquote>





	there's a dance in the old dame yet

**Author's Note:**

  * For [msmoocow](https://archiveofourown.org/users/msmoocow/gifts).



> With much inspiration drawn from ["the song of mehitabel"](http://www.well.com/user/ari/archy/the.song.of.mehitabel.html) and also ["the lesson of the moth"](http://www.lifesci.ucsb.edu/~haddock/poems/archy.html) by Don Marquis (or the cockroach archy). You might want to at least skim those before reading because extensive references are made. Trigger warning for suicide.

_this is the song of mehitabel  
of mehitabel the alley cat_

Sometimes she sings it to herself. Never out loud, of course, but then again Quinn never does anything out loud, nothing that really matters. Even at night when she's tucked up against Tina (she's the one with her back to the wall because Tina's the one who doesn't need something behind her propping her up), even when she tucks Tina's hair behind her ear and puts her mouth close, so close, and she whispers about princesses in towers and the princesses who save them. That's as much of a twisted exaggeration of what really lies in her heart as when she bats her eyelashes and plays the President of the Celibacy Club in the hallways.

Quinn's life is a carefully constructed script. Even Tina's not exempt, but then Quinn herself isn't exempt. She speaks to herself in riddles and half-truths and not-at-all-truths. That's why this is her favorite song, and she hums a made-up rhythm in the shower, while she studies, while she's pressed up against Tina's side and breathing in perfume.

Maybe Quinn doesn't believe in the pythagorean theory of the transmigration of the soul, but she fancies herself a Cleopatra. She is a queen, isn't she? In the hallways she's the head cheerleader; she's the straight-A student with the secretive smile and the charisma. For Tina she wears armor, and isn't that just perfect? She arms herself to whisk Tina into the perfect picture of a high school romance and all the while she keeps her walls up, lest she find herself actually falling in love, instead of just writing a love story.

So she smiles that secretive smile right back at herself and she hums.

_i have had my ups and downs  
but wotthehell wotthehell  
yesterday sceptres and crowns  
fried oysters and velvet gowns  
and today i herd with bums  
but wotthehell wotthehell_

That's how she found herself with Tina's hair draped over her arm, her breasts, and yes, in her mouth, because Tina always forgets to put it up first, and then all Quinn can breathe is shampoo and dusty hallways. She felt something she'd only felt before in the dark, quiet places of her mind where she lets herself have things she wants without consulting the script first; she let herself _want_ , and she let herself _have_ , and oh, things were sweet, but too sweet. Isn't this what happens to girls in the garden who like to pick fruit? Of course it won't last forever. Of course they'll be banished, punished, broken. It's nearly the oldest story in the book.

Oh, once upon a time she was an innocent kit; she had a bell and ribbons and she never wore her skirt too short, and she only held hands in secret, under the covers. She only spoke of love in whispers in the hallway, and then there was a maltese cat. And she said what the hell?

_cage me and i d go frantic  
my life is so romantic  
capricious and corybantic  
and i m toujours gai toujours gai_

And she laughs because that's the problem, isn't it? She's toujours gai, toujours gai; you have to say it twice because she lives in two worlds at the same time. Or she did, or she got herself to believe she did, until the day she realizes there's no transmigration of souls; she is the same person in the hallways that she is in her and Tina's room as she is in her pristine living room (the one you can't sit in) at home. The story gets messed up; someone mixed the script and there are pages from one in with the other, and all the characters are seeing and saying things they aren't meant to see, and her creation -- her life -- has taken on a life of its own.

_i know that i am bound  
for a journey down the sound  
in the midst of a refuse mound  
but wotthehell wotthehell _

She and Mehitabel are friends over wry smiles that hide the hurt in their eyes. It's the moth Quinn's afraid of; it's his song she ignores, right up until the very end with a vial in her hand and damnation in her ears. Her story's over; there's nothing left to write for her or the baby. What could she sing to it? Mehitabel isn't a lullaby; it's an elegy.

But it's not Mehitabel she hums when she takes the bottle away from her mouth, and she closes her eyes and tilts her head back. It's the moth and his flame that she thinks of, the moth so eager to live, live, live until he burns himself up on it; so eager to breathe deep the flame and turn himself to ashes because that's what it is, for him, to live. Is that what she's doing when she burns herself up from the inside? Is she dying to live, or dying to hide from life?

Has she ever lived at all, or has it all been a fairy tale, a Greek tragedy, and she's just finishing the story?

_the things that i had not ought to  
i do because i ve gotto  
wotthehell wotthehell  
and i end with my favorite motto  
toujours gai toujours gai_


End file.
